Living with HIV/AIDS: Challenges, Perspectives and Quality of Life

The opening chapter of Living with HIV/AIDS: Challenges, Perspectives and Quality of Life is concerned with exploring the implications of living with invisible conditions in both social and professional networks, and how that may impact their overall health and wellbeing. The authors use empirical examples of people living with mental illness and people living with HIV/AIDS to examine how the level of their visible or invisible symptoms played out on their experience of living with such invisible conditions. The goal of the subsequent study is to explore the process of interviewing sero-discordant couples through a participatory action research methodology, as well as the outcome of science-in-action that was developed and formed into social capital by the community of couples living with HIV. The authors also present a theoretical taxonomy on the various themes of microaggressions that people living with HIV/AIDS encounter, including stigmatized language, desexualization and dating/sex-related microaggressions, dehumanization and second-class citizenship, pathology of HIV/AIDS, romanticizing of HIV/AIDS, and criminalization of HIV/AIDS. The final section of this compilation aims to determine the reflexivity of HIV/AIDS survivors and the strategies taken to maintain a good quality of life. The data was collected from information coming from Peer Support Group, People Affected by HIV/AIDS, health workers, Local AIDS Commission and NGOs caring about AIDS using observation, in-depth interview, and documentation methods.